One of the most important decisions you will have to make is choosing the right fabric for your designs.  Some fabrics lend themselves to knits and some to woven fabrics.  Test your ability to pick the right fabric for your designs ,by feeling all the fabrics on clothing you own. First step FEEL IT! You are testing the HAND of the fabric. Is it soft , is it stiff , is it heavy is it light. Then look at the content tag to read what the garment is made of. This is a law, by the way, in the USA. You can also try to tell if the fabric is woven or knitted or a combination of both. I have told you before that stretch fabric may be combined with woven fabrics to add a little stretch for comfort.  If you have read my last post you will see my introduction to woven fabrics set up on a loom.

Knitted fabrics are  not created on a flat  loom, but on a circular one. I have seen some being knitted at  the textile fabric mills when I worked in the garment industry. There are many, many types of knit stitches , but  the knowledge of a few basics will be helpful to you.  Hand stitching is a common stitch  for beginners to learn how to knit. It is described as a plain stitch by people who stitch. On what we call the  FACE side, you will see row after row of the plain stitch climbing up. On the BACK side of the knitted fabric. You will see is called a horizontal PEARL stitch. Fabrics that are knitted  can be very complicated and can change from basic knitting to a knit pattern that the loom can knit. Rachael stitch is just one example  of the fancy stitches you can work with, usually not very stretchy.

A rib stitch is usually knit two pearl two.This stitch is usually used for cuffs or any where you want garments be tight. It stretches very much when pulled, and sometime will not recoil A full garment made from this  stitch will  not cling to the body easily.  You see it on tank tops a lot.

A stitch that is a good one for beginners to use is  a top weight double knit  It  is what I required for my students at Palm Beach Community College  to use for a tee shirt. It is really a double knit, but not a heavy one like the original double knit was used in the 70,s It was introduced to women that need stretch in their pants. Men wore garments worn out of this double knit also. What a sad time for the garment industry. Double Knit pant Suits loved by men too.

We eventually came up with more and more combination of fibers that will stretch a lot. You see them in work out stores now with amazing man made (synthetic) textiles. a whole lot  of books have been written about all there subjects. check them out and pick one to buy. The stitches we see in work out wear garments today does not get out of shape easily like the rib knit stitch because they are loaded with synthetic fibers ,sometimes only man made fibers  (synthetic) Check out my next post about Comparing fabrics  from natural to synthetic